Relativity Painting

Jess Cross is a contemporary realist painter and printmaker. Born in Freedom, Pennsylvania in 1981, Jess received her BFA in Painting from Salisbury University in 2004 and her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2007. Since receiving her Master's Degree, she has been exhibiting her work nationally including solo shows in Philadelphia and Maryland and recent print work in the 2017 Wheaton Biannual in Massachusetts. Jess currently lives in Northern California. Artist Statement My paintings tell a story beyond the standard portrait by using projections of light to add another "layer" of information. The abstract imagery invites the viewer to relate to the subject on their own terms; the viewer must decipher the imagery, like a Rorschach Inkblot, seeing only what their unconscious informs them to see. You no longer have a portrait at face value, and through these portraits a universal mythos of experience can be tied back together between the viewer, subject, and me. I started the "Goddess" series after the birth of my son, while trying to figure out how to balance being an artist and a mother. While considering this, I somehow linked my experience to that of a mythological goddess. As a goddess, you have to be beautiful yet strong, and you are often a warrior as well as a mother; motherhood is not romanticized now as it was in Ancient Greece. As an artist, teacher, wife and mother, I am trying to achieve the same balance Greek goddesses attained, holding several very different roles at once. I have found that -- mother or not -- we all lead many different roles in our lives. With that, I decided to portray friends of mine as goddesses that they relate to, using Greek goddess slides as the additional layer of information. In one way, portraying a goddess makes them feel very powerful and beautiful, but exposing their shoulders to me and the camera makes them appear vulnerable. Often, we will discuss how they relate to their goddess, their mythology or their personality. I take this experience with me to the canvas as I paint the subject from the series of photos taken; I think about my subject, their family, the goddess they are representing, and bring that dialogue into my artwork. The paintings created show the dichotomy between strength and vulnerability; projections can be interpreted as bruising or as war paint, and the viewer can take part in our conversation or make their own personal dialogue about what is being portrayed.